Spare Rib is coming back

Hurray, we recently discovered that Spare Rib is coming back! Read our previous blog post here, or sign up for their newsletter to find out when and where the launch will be. An interview with the relaunch instigator Charlotte Raven can be found on The Guardian website.

Women in Graphic Design

Women in Graphic Design 1890-2012 is new publication edited by Gerda Breuer and Julia Meer from the Bergische Universität Wuppertal, published by Jovis Verlag, Berlin. Texts are in german and english, lots of illustrations…

Via Dogana

In June 1991, the Libreria delle donne published the first issue of Via Dogana: a four-monthly magazine of political practice. The name chosen is that of the bookshop’s street, because “the women’s movement prefers to use metonymic names which, in Milan, are street names so there are no metaphorical implications”. 

Each issue started with an open meeting, the so-called “enlarged editorial office”. In order not to lose any copies, distribution followed the choice of a bookshop for each city, thereby creating a “map of bookshops preferred by women”. The topic of the first edition was significant: “Politics is Women’s Politics”. The second, “Opportunity is Uneven” spoke in favor of acknowledging FEMALE DIFFERENCE and openly challenged equal opportunity policies. Issue 37, “Freedom in the Workplace” (1998) announced the end of precarious work and the assumption of FEMINIZATION OF WORK AS WORK TOUT COURT. 

In 2001 the Libreria delle donne changed its location but the magazine continues to under the name of Via Dogana.

LABOUR – the publication

LABOUR addresses the general conditions of feminised labour, and how a feminist reading of work benefits a critique of the current scenario for art workers. The periodical arises from a series of five meetings of practicing female artists entitled ‘A conversation to know if there is a conversation to be had’, held at semi-public spaces in 2010–2012 respectively in New York (Dexter Sinister), Amsterdam (Kunstverein), Berlin (Salon Populaire), and London (Raven Row & Goldsmiths).
Edited by Melissa Gordon & Marina Vishmidt.
Next issue: ‘Persona’
aconversationtobehad.wordpress.com
For enquiries: aconversationtobehad@gmail.com

The New Woman’s Survival Catalog

The New Woman’s Survival Catalog is a publication edited by Kirsten Grimstad and Susan Rennie in 1973 with the aim to strengthen a feminist network in the US and raise consciousness for different kinds of movements and associations concerned with feminist issues.

Working for a University, Kirsten Grimstad was initially assigned to put together a bibliography of women’s studies, but then decided to include also contemporary activities of women and women’s groups to take the research beyond scholarly scope. During the summer of 1973, Kirsten Grimstad and Susan Rennie were then taking the road for an extensive trip through the US, meeting all the individuals and initiatives that are introduced in the catalog personally and gathering information for the publication. 

The New Woman’s Survival Catalog consists of several chapters such as art, communications, work and money, child care, self help, self-defense, getting justice and buliding the movement. The Catalog introduces women-run presses, bookstores, bands, law firms, banks, organizations and enterprises as well as schools and non-sexist playgroups for children and include their contact information.

"These projects express a rejection of the values of existing institutional structures and, unlike the hip male counter-culture, represent an active attempt to reshape culture through changing values and consciousness." (from the foreword)

The format and layout of the New Woman’s Survival Catalog are similar to the Whole Earth Catalog.

Further comparison on an ideological level might be interesting: starting from the difference between "WHOLE" and "WOMAN" in the respective titles – the first seems objective whereas the second is by definition subjective...

Quite striking is also "Survival" as part of the title (and mission).

The catalog itself as well as the projects and initiatives that it introduces are the outcome of non-hierarchic collective work and decision-making structures and processes. It also shows an urge for communication and exchange of experiences.

A PDF of the Catalog is available here: http://www.letsremake.info/PDFs/New_Womans_Survival_Catalog_3.pdf

There is a video interview with Kirsten Grimstad and Susan Rennie that provides more background information: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDQrJOIYJ_4

Typography & Gender

A great MA dissertation by Julián David Moncada Tobar, from Master of Arts in Typeface Design, University of Reading, 2011.

Interview with Marsha Rowe

A What I find most fascinating is that you decided to share all the tasks except graphic design.
M No, that did come in. Because those days it was still all cut out, big pasted up on boards, everyone ended up getting much more involved in what type size, headings and the images and what to chose.

A So there was an involvement in the design?
M Yes there was, but there was a person co-ordinating and making the final decisions. And everyone got to learn a bit but some people couldn’t do it. It was a skill, you have to be very good with your hands to do those paste ups and you have to have a flare for it, so it just couldn’t be easily collectivised. You still had people responsible for specific things, so right up to collective days, you had someone in charge with design, and someone responsible for music or features.

I interviewed Marsha Rowe, the founder of Spare Rib, for Treating of Matters in 2010. You can read it in full here.

Spare Rib's first dummy, 1972

Women in Graphic Design 1890-2012

A new book by Gerda Breuer und Julia Meer, published by Jovis in March 2012.
"Why do apparently so few women feature in the history of design? Why is it still the case that so few women speak at conferences? Why are previously well-known women “forgotten”? What effects does the gender debate have on today’s everyday working life? Are women judged today solely on the basis of their quality of work? Since professionalization began, female graphic designers have been working actively and successfully, but the artificial synthesis of masculinity and artistic genius has repeatedly prevented women—with few exceptions—to be recognised in “official” design history. Still today, despite the claim that the gender issue is obsolete in graphic design, only a tiny percentage of active female designers enjoy public acclaim." Buy the book here.

Shocking Pink!

Excellent article on the Shocking Pink magazine, its makers, and 80s feminism in Britain, on the superb the F-word blog. 

Blogs just don’t look this much fun...

Rise of Capitalism and the Witch-Hunts

Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici (Autonomedia, 2004)

“Federici’s book is a crucial contribution to the long history of resistance to the violence of the global capitalist enclosures. The long-time anti-empire feminist activist and scholar situates the witch-hunts within a history of five centuries of capitalist globalization. The witch-hunts, her book argues, were as foundational to the production of the modern proletariat and modern capitalism as the expropriation of the European peasantry, the genocidal campaigns of colonization in the America, and the African slave trade.”
– Fiona Jeffries, ‘Rain Review of Books’

 

A witch rides a goat through the sky, causing a rain of fire.

Woodcut from Francesco-Maria Guazzo, ‘Compendium Maleficarum’ (1610).

p.217 in ‘Caliban and the Witch’

Riot Grrrl and design as a way of communication

Bikini Kill #2 example of a Grrrl zine

Riot grrrl is a movement that is located mostly within the punk scene of the 90's and during the third wave of feminism, it's a movement that used art and music to show their ideas to the world, and a way of communicating with each other from one woman to another. The movement started in Olympia, Washington when a few women formed bands and held women-only meetings in which girls could discuss the ways sexism controlled their everyday lives. A large part of the movement was the DIY (do-it-yourself) philosophy, in music as well as in art and design. One of the best examples is there way of using zines as their way of communicating.

What is a zine? Zines are do-it-yourself (DIY) magazines, but not necessarily how you think of magazines.  They are independently published little booklets, often created by a single person or by contributions by people without he same opinion. These booklets are often put together by gluing together words and pictures onto pages that are then photocopied, folded and stapled. They're a quick and easy, not to mention cheap, way of publishing and getting your idea out there.

Riot Grrrls used zines as their way of fighting back against the mainstream media that wasn't portraying females in a very positive light at that moment in time, telling rape victims it was their own fault, objectifying women left, right and centre, and those who didn't have the 'normal' appearance, like the riot grrrls, were portrayed as a negative influence for women and girls all over the world.

“BECAUSE we girls want to create mediums that speak to US. We are tired of boy band after boy band, boy zine after boy zine, boy punk after boy punk after boy… BECAUSE we need to talk to each other. Communication/inclusion is the key. We will never know if we don’t break the code of silence…BECAUSE in every form of media we see us/myself slapped, decapitated, laughed at, objectified, raped, trivialized, pushed, ignored, stereotyped, kicked, scorned, molested, silenced, invalidated, knifed, shot, choked and killed. BECAUSE a safe space needs to be created for girls where we can open our eyes and reach out to each other without being threatened by this sexist society and our day to day bullshit” Erika Reinstean, Riot Grrrl NYC#2

for more info please visit http://grrrlzines.net/about.htm#zines

POV FEMALE

Oodee is Damien Poulain's new independent publishing venture. The POV FEMALE series of monographs (POV stands for Point of View) focuses on photographers whose self-motivated, single-themed projects exhibit a uniquely female perspective. The first series focused on five London-based photographers. POV Female Tokyo is launching in Tokyo (Calm & Punk Gallery) on March 23rd, 2012, offering a glimpse of how shared perspectives transcend geographical boundaries and respond creatively to different senses of place. More info on www.oodee.net

Heresies

A feminist publication on art and politics

Read more on the Heresies archive

Suffragettes to She-Devils

Suffragettes to She-Devils: Women's Liberation and Beyond

The developing role of graphics in the struggle for women’s liberation. Written by Liz McQuiston, with a foreword by Germaine Greer and designed by Pentagram. Order via Phaidon.

Hal of Femmes

The first series of monographies on female graphic designers, initiated, designed and edited by Swedish collective Hjarta Smarta. More information on www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2011/09/29/hall-of-femmes 

Women of Design (book)

‘The immense body of work produced by graphic designers around the world is astoundingly varied, rich and widely celebrated. Yet in publications, conferences and other public realms, women designers tend to be outnumbered by their male counterparts whose appearances, work and achievements are constantly in the spotlight. Luckily, it’s a reversing trend. While this book does not attempt to relieve the imbalance, it does bring full attention to the wonderful work, careers and contributions of women designers, writers, teachers and entrepreneurs around the world.’ More information on this book can be found here and a review of it here